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Reports

Reports provides short summaries of the latest findings of academic institutes, think-tanks, charities, pressure groups and government and international bodies from 2011 to 2014. The reports included can, in the main, be accessed free of charge. For a review of the academic literature, for which journal subscriptions are required, the Social Policy digest is a good source.

A report by MPs has criticised the Department for Work and Pensions for a series of cases in which official statistics were used to 'spin' stories about benefit claimants, thereby encouraging 'negative preconceptions and prejudices'.

The five richest families in the UK are now wealthier than the bottom 20 per cent of the entire population, according to a briefing drawn up by Oxfam. That means just five households have more money than 12.6 million people put together – almost the same as the number of people living below the poverty line.

The government should have a minimum wage target of £6.94 an hour and create a powerful watchdog to help workers escape low pay, according to the conclusions of an inquiry chaired by Sir George Bain, one of the original architects of the UK statutory national minimum wage.

The inquiry's final report was published on the day the coalition government announced the minimum wage would rise by 19p – or 3 per cent – to £6.50 an hour and signalled there would be bigger increases in future years.

A significant number of local council tax support schemes do not meet the official objective of protecting vulnerable people, according to a report by a committee of MPs. The report calls on the government to assess the impacts of localising council tax support.

Plans to tackle child poverty in Scotland have been published by the Scottish Government. The new strategy, which covers the period 2014 to 2017, is aimed at tackling the causes of poverty by addressing them early.

The Scottish Government said that although child poverty in Scotland has fallen in recent years, it is set to increase to levels last seen in 2003-04 due to the impact of benefits reforms introduced by the coalition government in London.

More than half of all children in poverty are missing out on crucial help that could keep them warm, a new analysis by the Children’s Society has revealed. The report highlights the extent of fuel poverty in the UK, and says many children living in poverty are also living in inadequately heated homes.

A progressive property tax – replacing the 'widely discredited' council tax – could reduce bills for the poorest tenth of households by £202 a year on average, and increase them for the top tenth by £184, according to a new study by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

The authors examine the impact of four tax regimes on households: the existing council tax system; the existing council tax system based on revaluation; a flat-rate national property tax; and a progressive national property tax.

Household spending on energy has jumped by as much as 55 per cent over the course of a decade, according to new data published by the Office for National Statistics. The poorest fifth of households in the UK spent 11 per cent of their income on household energy in 2012, up from just 8 per cent in 2002.

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PSE:UK is a major collaboration between the University of Bristol, Heriot-Watt University, The Open University, Queen's University Belfast, University of Glasgow and the University of York working with the National Centre for Social Research and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency. ESRC Grant RES-060-25-0052.